Thursday 10 June 2010

Sleeper staining

500 sleepers are now stained and ready for laying.

The last batch laid out to dry
Had a problem with my staining mixture. Ran out of my first mixture and when mixing some more to the same recipe it came out too strong. After a little thinning down, with some more isopropyl alcohol, I think I got close enough. I'm trying to achieve a faded grey/brown colour to the sleepers with that almost silvery look they get when weathered. Hope to post better photos once I start laying the sleepers on the layout.

I'm using Exactoscale 1.6mm thick sleepers hoping I'll get some good variation of depth to the ballast. May well be extravagant and use wooden sleepers even where they will be completely covered by roadways and hard-standing in the Wharf area. Initially I'd purchased some copper clad sleepers for these areas. Now my thoughts are as the hard-standing looks like it was compacted earth, not completely up to rail height, tops of chairs and sleeper edges may well be seen in places.

(Note to self - Staining recipe used for this batch : 100ml water + 100ml isopropyl alcohol + 4ml black ink + 5ml sepia ink - each sleeper individually dipped quickly and shaken)

4 comments:

Dave Keeler said...

When I did the sleepers for Hallatrow, again the full depth P4 Track co. ones, I painted each with wood dye which has given a nice mixture of colours.

Ian said...

Is this a case of me reading too many books and not thinking of the obvious....?

Looked at the pictures of Hallatrow on the Scalefour Web site and your sleepers look good. What wood dyes did you use?

Dave Keeler said...

Only 'Colron wood dye - Jacobean Dark Oak', but as each sleeper was individually painted the amount on the brush changed so I got the various shades. Also the smell does not linger as much as creosote.

James said...

I'm interested to see you've chosen the thicker Exactoscale sleepers; I bought a batch of these at Scalefour North to try as I'd like to use them for my new project for similar reasons where ballast may be a little 'light'.

Should be intersting to how you find the results!